Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Preferred Citation

University of California, Santa Barbara, Environmental Studies Program collection. UArch 76. Department of Special Collections,
Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Acquisition Information

Undetermined.

Scope and Content of Collection

"It was over 40 years ago when Santa Barbara experienced the worst oil spill in U.S. history up to that time. The University
of California, Santa Barbara was within sight and smell of the littered channel and its beaches. Until that point in history,
the world of academia had not yet realized that it overlooked a very important aspect of educating students on how to care,
respect, and develop a framework to protect our fragile world.

"But this all changed just a few weeks after the spill when on February 18th, 1969 a group of twenty-one faculty, calling
themselves The Friends of the Human Habitat, met to discuss the possibility of promoting some form of environmental education
at UCSB. The members of the ad-hoc committee were geologists, geographers, engineers, biologists, an economist, and a historian.
By the fall of 1970 the Environmental Studies Program at UCSB was established, one of the first of a new breed of educational
programs in the country. It was set up as a multidisciplinary program drawing on the strengths of many fields and providing
a generalist approach to complex environmental issues.

"Four decades later, the Environmental Studies (ES) Program still holds true to its goal of a comprehensive approach to education
while simultaneously evolving and adapting to meet the challenges of an ever changing world, both academically and environmentally.
The first graduating ES class in 1972 had only 12 students. In 1980 the total number of graduates rose to 871. Today, with
more than 500 enrolled students and over 4,600 alumni actively working to preserve and protect our environment, the ES Program
at UC Santa Barbara is considered one of the oldest and most successful undergraduate environmental programs in the world."